Oh for Christ's sake people, Charlie Hebdo is not a person. You're just making yourself look stupid by saying this, and it invalidates your whole argument. This thread is just so full of ignorance.

(Original post by wellholathere)
It's hypocritical for France to be preaching freedom of expression when it comes to criticizing religious beliefs when they at the same time do not freedom of expression to allow religious representation.

France is a secular Republic - which means that we consider religion to be a part of our own private lives, that we should not be displaying in public institutions. It's not just about religion, the same applies to political opinions. We just like the idea that publicly, you should not be seen as a Muslim, Christian, Jew, leftist, conservative, racist, environmentalist, but as a French citizen.
Believe what you will, but I much prefer this system than having an un-elected head of state that also happens to be the head of a religion that doesn't represent me at all.

(Original post by wellholathere)
No, i don't want the representation of Charlie. By doing this we're making a righteous human rights figure like mlk or something. I am a European citizen that values free speech and religion and expression, I just don't want to be backed by the representation of someone who mocks beliefs.

But they didn't only mock beliefs - they also mocked politicians, political movements, artists, the media, old people, young people, arabic people, chinese people, white people, black people... They weren't only there to make people laugh, they actually tried to make people more tolerant and open-minded by teaching them to be critical about absolutely everything. Those people that believe that Charlie Hebdo's drawings were only there to make people laugh haven't understood a thing: it is first and firemost a progressive, left-wing, antiracist, anti-extremist newspaper which makes people think. But of course, when it comes to religion people are so narrow-minded that they can't be just a tad bit critical about what they believe in.

In France, the far-right party "National Front" is currently on the rise, and there have been some racist acts recently - among which anti-gay marriage demonstrators endoctrinated their own children to give a banana to our black Minister of Justice, calling her a "monkey". Basically, they're not making fun of her, but of these racist people.

Please people, before you say something just try to understand what you're criticising. Charlie Hebdo was not racist, antisemitic or islamophobic; it was preaching tolerance and fighting against extremisms.

(Original post by Opiece)
Oh for Christ's sake people, Charlie Hebdo is not a person. You're just making yourself look stupid by saying this, and it invalidates your whole argument. This thread is just so full of ignorance.

France is a secular Republic - which means that we consider religion to be a part of our own private lives, that we should not be displaying in public institutions. It's not just about religion, the same applies to political opinions. We just like the idea that publicly, you should not be seen as a Muslim, Christian, Jew, leftist, conservative, racist, environmentalist, but as a French citizen.

But they didn't only mock beliefs - they also mocked politicians, political movements, artists, the media, old people, young people, arabic people, chinese people, white people, black people... They weren't only there to make people laugh, they actually tried to make people more tolerant and open-minded by teaching them to be critical about absolutely everything. Those people that believe that Charlie Hebdo's drawings were only there to make people laugh haven't understood a thing: it is first and firemost a progressive, left-wing, antiracist, anti-extremist newspaper which makes people think. But of course, when it comes to religion people are so narrow-minded that they can't be just a tad bit critical about what they believe in.

In France, the far-right party "National Front" is currently on the rise, and there have been some racist acts recently - among which anti-gay marriage demonstrators endoctrinated their own children to give a banana to our black Minister of Justice, calling her a "monkey". Basically, they're not making fun of her, but of these racist people.

Please people, before you say something just try to understand what you're criticising. Charlie Hebdo was not racist, antisemitic or islamophobic; it was preaching tolerance and fighting against extremisms.

(Original post by Opiece)
Oh for Christ's sake people, Charlie Hebdo is not a person. You're just making yourself look stupid by saying this, and it invalidates your whole argument. This thread is just so full of ignorance.

France is a secular Republic - which means that we consider religion to be a part of our own private lives, that we should not be displaying in public institutions. It's not just about religion, the same applies to political opinions. We just like the idea that publicly, you should not be seen as a Muslim, Christian, Jew, leftist, conservative, racist, environmentalist, but as a French citizen.

But they didn't only mock beliefs - they also mocked politicians, political movements, artists, the media, old people, young people, arabic people, chinese people, white people, black people... They weren't only there to make people laugh, they actually tried to make people more tolerant and open-minded by teaching them to be critical about absolutely everything. Those people that believe that Charlie Hebdo's drawings were only there to make people laugh haven't understood a thing: it is first and firemost a progressive, left-wing, antiracist, anti-extremist newspaper which makes people think. But of course, when it comes to religion people are so narrow-minded that they can't be just a tad bit critical about what they believe in.

In France, the far-right party "National Front" is currently on the rise, and there have been some racist acts recently - among which anti-gay marriage demonstrators endoctrinated their own children to give a banana to our black Minister of Justice, calling her a "monkey". Basically, they're not making fun of her, but of these racist people.

Please people, before you say something just try to understand what you're criticising. Charlie Hebdo was not racist, antisemitic or islamophobic; it was preaching tolerance and fighting against extremisms.

Right so we should not display political opinions? But it's okay to mock political opinions? Oh right yes. That's so much better.
Yes I know it wasn't only religion. I know the whole defense making people more tolerant with the critique. However, it's offensive to sensitive subjects and disrespectful. Nowadays respect is simply something we lack because "i have a right to tell you my opinion, don't judge me" or whatever. Now, if Charlie's allowed to use the freedom of speech defense for this, then you should be allowed to make fun of anything right? so the holocaust for example, it's okay to draw satirical cartoons mocking that? After all it only restricts our freedom of expression if we aren't allowed, right?

(Original post by Mr Inquisitive)
Yes, it can indeed be divisive. But so what? Cartoons don't cause violence; beliefs rooted in 6th century desert myths do.

Mockery of religion is essential, though. Totalitarian religion seeks to dominate others by appealing to divine supremacy. If you can mock religion by taking its core texts and ruthlessly satirising its flaws and inconsistencies, you completely undermine the notion of them being divinely warranted. Mockery of religion is utterly key.

"Cartoons don't cause violence" hours after the attack bullets were fired at a prayer room in a Mosque in France, as well as other acts of vandalism, and a pig's head was left outside of another Mosque with a direct threat. So I'd say that cartoons cause violence in this case. You can argue that deaths>threats and teenagers getting beaten up but I'd rather not let this devolve into the oppression olympics.

You can hate Islam or whatever but I doubt that you actively and publicly ridicule Islam in a way which is beyond just disrespect, or wouldn't create any sort of debate.

Back to the original point, I believe in freedom of speech and expression, but that does not mean that I'm willing to advocate the publications. Which is why I'm not going to affiliate myself by saying "I am Charlie Hebdo".

(Original post by wellholathere)
Right so we should not display political opinions? But it's okay to mock political opinions? Oh right yes. That's so much better.

This doesn't make sense.

Yes I know it wasn't only religion. I know the whole defense making people more tolerant with the critique. However, it's offensive to sensitive subjects and disrespectful.

So what? Objecting to freedom of expression is offensive and disrespectful - do you not see your own pitfall?

Now, if Charlie's allowed to use the freedom of speech defense for this, then you should be allowed to make fun of anything right? so the holocaust for example, it's okay to draw satirical cartoons mocking that? After all it only restricts our freedom of expression if we aren't allowed, right?

Absolutely. The holocaust is fair game. Anything is fair game for satire - why is that difficult to appreciate?

(Original post by Asurat)
"Cartoons don't cause violence" hours after the attack bullets were fired at a prayer room in a Mosque in France, as well as other acts of vandalism, and a pig's head was left outside of another Mosque with a direct threat. So I'd say that cartoons cause violence in this case.

Please do share your causal link with us. How exactly has the drawing of cartoons caused people to die? Show your working.

You can hate Islam or whatever but I doubt that you actively and publicly ridicule Islam in a way which is beyond just disrespect, or wouldn't create any sort of debate.

What constitutes 'beyond just disrespect'?

Back to the original point, I believe in freedom of speech and expression, but that does not mean that I'm willing to advocate the publications. Which is why I'm not going to affiliate myself by saying "I am Charlie Hebdo".

Debatable that you do indeed support freedom of speech & expression. If you don't actively advocate the *right* (and quite arguably, the duty) of Charlie Hebdo to publish the cartoons, you're an enemy of free expression.

(Original post by wellholathere)
Right so we should not display political opinions? But it's okay to mock political opinions? Oh right yes. That's so much better.
Yes I know it wasn't only religion. I know the whole defense making people more tolerant with the critique. However, it's offensive to sensitive subjects and disrespectful. Nowadays respect is simply something we lack because "i have a right to tell you my opinion, don't judge me" or whatever. Now, if Charlie's allowed to use the freedom of speech defense for this, then you should be allowed to make fun of anything right? so the holocaust for example, it's okay to draw satirical cartoons mocking that? After all it only restricts our freedom of expression if we aren't allowed, right?

Yes, it's okay to draw satirical cartoons mocking the Holocaust. It's funny you mention that, because Charlie Hebdo actually did. But obviously you could not know, because you're completely ignorant about this topic.

That's a whole another question, but I don't agree with your definition of "respect". To me, respect is not a self-centered thing which forbids everyone to make fun of anything because it might offend you. I believe it's about respecting everyone's point of view, and most of all respecting their right to mock you and disagree with you. You have a very egotistical vision of respect, while I think it's more about having a respectful society as a whole where every topic can be debated without those narrow-minded people that "feel offended" all the time because they just can't take a step back.

What I mean is, in the end, we're all human. We're not defined by our religion, our ethnicity, our history, our political opinion, our culture, our language or our looks, but by our human nature. So before hating someone for their religion or their freedom of expression, we should love them for being human.

To be honest, as a French person, people like you scare me because of the impact your message has on our society. I don't want other Muslim French citizens to feel 'left out' of the movement, and nor do I want racist people to jeopardise the movement to attack Muslims. We should include Muslims and exclude racists, not the opposite. Because in the end, Charlie Hebdo was much closer to Muslims than racists.

And you didn't understand my point about religion and political opinions. The French system makes a difference between 'public' and 'private' lives: people working in public institutions should only be defined by their French citizenship. However, these people are allowed to worship or believe in anything they want to in their own private environment. Unless Charlie Hebdo suddenly becomes national propaganda displayed by the government in every street (which isn't the case), your point doesn't stand.

(Original post by Mr Inquisitive)
This doesn't make sense.
She said that France doesn't allow political opinions or something. I answered "Right so we should not display political opinions? But it's okay to mock political opinions?" because I think it's absurd to not allow you to say something, but allow you to criticize it.

So what? Objecting to freedom of expression is offensive and disrespectful - do you not see your own pitfall?
Well free speech will never be 100% a good thing. I'm not disrespecting free speech, i'm disrespecting disrespect.

Absolutely. The holocaust is fair game. Anything is fair game for satire - why is that difficult to appreciate?

What about if it's racist or discriminative? Lets let Hitler be a satirical cartoonist, as long as he's only drawing, his views on antisemitism and wanting to exterminate an entire religion are fine.

Basically my point is, sure we have freedom of expression. But sometimes it's dangerous, we can't just say anything and back it up with 'free expression', It sets a bad precedent. There are limits.

(Original post by wellholathere)
What about if it's racist or discriminative? Lets let Hitler be a satirical cartoonist, as long as he's only drawing, his views on antisemitism and wanting to exterminate an entire religion are fine.

Basically my point is, sure we have freedom of expression. But sometimes it's dangerous, we can't just say anything and back it up with 'free expression', It sets a bad precedent. There are limits.

See, that's why we have something known as "juridical institutions", which condemn racist people and defend those that did nothing wrong. That's also why Charlie Hebdo was never condemned while Minute (the newspaper which said that our Black Justice minister "a la banane" - a French phrase involving bananas) was.

(Original post by Mr Inquisitive)
Please do share your causal link with us. How exactly has the drawing of cartoons caused people to die? Show your working.

What constitutes 'beyond just disrespect'?

Debatable that you do indeed support freedom of speech & expression. If you don't actively advocate the *right* (and quite arguably, the duty) of Charlie Hebdo to publish the cartoons, you're an enemy of free expression.

In terms of my casual link, I'd quite like to point out that you said "cartoons do not cause violence". I did not say that cartoons caused death, they don't.

"Beyond just disrespect" in my opinion is attacking something objective with no intent other than damage. As far as my understanding the word respect means acknowledging the feelings and wishes of others. Disrespect being a disregard of those feelings and wishes. So isn't it logical that "beyond" disrespect would be an outright attack as well as disregard? I think this is a sort of trivial thing to quote but I'm open to your interpretations of any of my posts.

In my opinion advocating free-speech is as simple as not attacking it. Advocating ALL of Charlie Hebdo's publications would also arguably make me an Islamophobe as well as generally religiously intolerant.
I know friends people who don't like Islam for whatever reason, but they don't at the very least draw pictures of Mohammad. I mean come on, if you want to argue that Islam is a religion of hate and violence, is that in any way relevant at all? That creates no meaningful debate and just inflames.

Generally, the issues that Charlie Hebdo raise (such as homophobia in Islam) are totally justified, but I struggle to see how they actually help solve anything. Exercising your freedom of speech to the utmost extremes does nothing meaningful apart from keeping the limits wide. So yes I would definitely say that I advocate the right and the duty for the cartoons (and other controversial media) to be published, but I will 100% refuse to affiliate myself with the publications because of their content. Isn't that fair?

I have no idea of the context of the cartoon about the Rabaa massacre but the one with the politician as a monkey does indeed seem to be pretty disgusting.

However, I think you're missing the point of #JeSuisCharlie. One of the perks of living in a democratic society is that we are (or ought to be) able to say and think whatever we want, but the price we have to pay is that we need to allow others to say and think what *they* want, no matter how unsavoury those things might be. I'm a leftist atheist and I despise most religions and I despise organisations like UKIP and the BNP, but I believe they should be allowed to exist and that they should be able to say what they want because that guarantees my freedom to do the same.

So #JeSuisCharlie doesn't mean that you agree with every cartoon that has ever been published in Charlie Hebdo - I mean, they're a publication that sets out to mock pretty much every group there is after all - rather, it means that you support the right of such publications to exist and are against violence being used to suppress freedom of speech.